When food prices spiked in 2008, the international price of basic food items peaked at unprecedented levels, bringing a wave of food riots in low-income countries. Subsequent price volatility had huge impacts on millions of people who struggled to feed their families nutritiously. Life in a Time of Food Price Volatility was a real-time investigation by IDS and Oxfam of the experiences of people on low and uncertain incomes as they made dramatic adjustments to their place in the global economy in the wake of the food and financial crises that began in 2007.

According to new research published by the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), low income countries like Malawi and Madagascar and lower middle income Guatemala, are leading the charge against hunger and undernutrition, whilst economic powerhouses such as India and Nigeria are failing some of their most vulnerable citizens.

Development experts, policymakers and academics, meeting at a major conference on global land grabbing, being held at IDS, were told today that a new 'scramble for Africa' is taking place. A major study released by the World Bank last September found that in 2009 deals were being struck for the allocation of 45 million hectares of land, 70 per cent of this was in Africa.

The ODI Social Protection Programme worked
with the Centre for Social Protection (CSP) at the Institute of Development
Studies (IDS), the School of International Development at the University
of East Anglia (UEA-DEV), and the Southern Africa Regional Hunger and Vulnerability
Programme (RHVP) to produce this shared statement on the future of Social
Protection in sub-Saharan Africa, challenging current practices within
the research and donor community.

The paper challenges current practices
within the research and donor community.